10 THE JABDINES* EXPEDITION 



could not be easily seen ; none of the party were wounded. 

 After this they were continually harassed, the most serious 

 outcome of the interference being the scattering of horses 

 during the night. This caused a detention of six days 

 at one camp, and from it eight head of cattle were lost, 

 and had to be abandoned. For several days they continued 

 to travel down the river, where the grass was somewhat 

 better, until they reached saltwater. Here they killed 

 and jerked a beast, and a shovel-nose shark was similarly 

 treated. Frank lost his only dog a few days before this. 

 By reason of absence of feed for the stock, they were 

 compelled to keep away from the course they wisjied to 

 follow, but necessarily they must now keep the coast on 

 their left. And time was very precious, for the wet season 

 might set in at any time, and after even one storm the 

 ground became dreadfully boggy. They knew they might 

 be shut in amongst the anabranches, and for miles the flat 

 country showed high flood marks. On 5th December, 

 they moved forward, this tirne steering northward across 

 flat tea-tree country with fairly good grass, but almost 

 without water. Half the horses were missing next morn- 

 ing, and the whole day was spent in trying to find them. 

 Some of them the brothers tracked to their last camp, but 

 they had to stay there for the night as darkness set in before 

 the whole of them were found. Without food or blankets 

 they spent the night battling with myriads of mosquitoes. 

 When next evening they reached the camp with the nine 

 horses they had found, only two others had been brought 

 in, and the mule with his pack had been allowed to stray. 

 He was never secured, although one of the boys once caught 

 sight of him. Two of the best horses were lost from the 

 same camp, one of them, like the mule, having gone mad, 

 apparently from drinking so much salt water in the absence 

 of fresh ; the other had died it was thought from the same 

 cause. At this wretched camp eight days had been lost, 

 and on 13th December the party had to move on, but with 

 the mule's pack they had lost all that remained of their 

 tea, currants and raisins, their spade, tomahawks, a^xes, 

 shoeing tools, etc., and two pairs boots, the only ones the 

 brothers at this time possessed. This day their route topk 

 them across large marine plains on which were numbers 

 of birds, of which they shot a few. They camped at night 



